1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a miniature fuse to be used as an attachment to a printed wiring board.
2. Description of the Related Art
To control various electric apparatuses, electronic circuits formed by connecting printed wiring boards each provided with various electronic parts are often used. In such electronic circuits, due to malfunction of circuit parts, a large current flows into the circuit parts, which causes very dangerous situations such as abnormal heat generation, or malfunction of electric apparatuses due to breakdown of the circuit parts.
Therefore, in such electronic circuits, a miniature fuse is attached onto the printed wiring boards. When a large current flows as described above, the fuse blows out and thereby a circuit current breaks to prevent the above dangerous situations.
As conventional art of such miniature fuses, a fuse disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,417,226 is well known.
In the miniature fuse disclosed in the above document, a base and a cap form a case, and a fuse element is enclosed in a chamber of the case. Each of the base and the cap is formed of a plastic molded part manufactured by a dedicated mold.
In the above conventional miniature fuse, the forms of the base and the cap are different from each other. Therefore, it is necessary to manufacture different respective molds for them, which increases the manufacturing cost.
Further, when the fuse is assembled, a pair of leads, to distal ends of which a fuse element is attached, is inserted through a pair of lead-inserting holes provided at the base, and the base is covered with a cap. This increases the number of steps of assembly, and also increases the manufacturing cost.